3 Weeks Late

If there ever was a way to ensure that a married couple would not want to divorce then all you have to do is remodel their kitchen. My new kitchen is so beautiful that all I want to do is spend hours sitting at the bar and staring at how well everything came together. There is no way that I would ever think of leaving David because if I did then I could not afford the mortgage on my own and there is no way in hell that I would ever move out.

To See Before Pics, Click Here

The entire remodel took 6 weeks and turned out 10x more polished then I could have ever hoped. All of the cabinets are custom and include self closing hinges. The appliances are bosch and GE, floor and back splash are tumbled travertine, and counters are granite.












To see more pics (including many of the process), go to my webshots

Nobody Said it Was Easy, Nobody Said it Would be so Hard

Why didn't anyone tell me it would be this difficult to cook without a stove, oven, kitchen sink, or countertop? When we began the remodel I had all these grand schemes of how I was going to utilize the grill, George Foreman, fondue, and crock pot to make healthy meals each night. What I didn't realize was that the grill and George Foreman get old after the eleventeenth time. The fondue and crockpot require preparation and without a countertop I am forced to cut veggies and meat on my coffee table. (Not too comfortable in case you were wondering.) And to top it all off everything becomes covered in dust during a remodel which forces me to wash everything before and after I use it. There are so many other things I would prefer to do instead of leaning over the bathtub washing dishes twice a night.

So far we haven't resorted to ordering in pizza but we do eat out 3-4 times each week. Much more then our normal once a week. And when I do "cook" at home I usually resort to convenience semi-homemade types of products. Uncle Ben's microwaveable rice and I have become quick friends even though one pouch has over a 1,000 grams of sodium per serving. I try to be low-carb and low-fat but I am ALWAYS low sodium when I cook so this high salt cooking has left me feeling like a salt lick most days.

I've decided to go on a shake fast for the next week or so. This lack of anything healthy to cook has actually made this a really easy decision and I am sure will make it really easy to stick on the fast. I went on a long term fast before my wedding which knocked the weight off me like gang busters. This fast will be much shorter but hopefully gets me on the path towards cute summer shorts and skirts.

Goodbye Kitchen!

Do you ever have those "oh sh*t! moments"? Sunday morning Dave and I were sitting on the couch reading the paper. After 5 days off from work (3 days plus weekend) I was looking forward to my final day off from work relaxing on the couch and catching up on tivo'd shows. So I'm reading the Sunday paper when I look up at our kitchen and realize with sudden clarity that the demo of our kitchen is set to begin on Tuesday and we haven't done anything to prepare. Instead of the relaxing Sunday I was looking forward to, I spent it boxing everything in the cabinets and trying to decide what could be packed for the next 4-6 weeks and what we would absolutely need. I then tried to create a makeshift kitchen in our dining room that would allow us to make dinner every night without the use of an oven, stove, kitchen sink or dishwasher. Dave and I cook at home quite often and we both knew that 30 days of take out would leave us feeling salty and rather unhealthy. We'll see though. Last night we tried to cook using our limited kitchen and it was such a huge inconvenience that we might just give up and not bother with the juggling act that is required to make a meal and subsequent washing of dishes in the courtyard using a bucket and garden hose.

Goodbye Kitchen. Even though you were completely outdated, a huge part of me will miss you especially over these next 6 weeks.



This wall is coming down so that the kitchen opens up to the living room.

Our makeshift kitchen.

Demolition begins.

Rolling Along

I had something much more important to blog about today but I seem to have forgotten what it is I wanted to write about. This either means it wasn't that important to begin with or that my mind is filled with kitchen remodel details.

This weekend we finalized much of the design details. This might be TMI but I really, really want to make slow sweet love to the kitchen appliances that we picked out. We have a stainless steel french door refrigerator, a slide in range (slide in! do you know how cool they are????), matching microwave and a bosch dishwasher that is so quiet that a red light needs to come on so that you don't accidentally open it while it is running. Plus we picked out the slabs for our granite countertops (hawaiian bordeaux). I'm trying to not think of the countertops too much even though I love them. There are a million reasons why granite countertops are bad for the environment and everytime I look at them a part of me will want to rub my boobies on them and the other part of me will want to slap myself for being such a selfish consumer.

Contractors is French for Contradicting

For the past two weeks we've been interviewing contractors to remodel our kitchen and install shutters on several windows. Tomorrow is our last day of interviews (but not the last of design consultations). In total we will have interviewed 7 contractors and received 7 different opinions which is very frustrating.

When it comes to the shutters we are needing them for an odd shaped window. We've been told by one sales rep that synthetic shutters last the longest. By another that wood is the way to go because they (and only they) avoid discoloration. By others that synthetic will only work because of the large size of our window. And yet again by another that it is impossible to cut synthetic to fit an odd shaped window and therefore wood would be our only option. All of the contradicting opinions are enough to make my head spin.

Then it comes to the kitchen. We've told all the contractors that we want a complete demolition of the existing kitchen to be replaced with custom made shaker cabinets, travertine flooring, granite counters, and a tumbled travertine back splash that goes from counter to cabinets. We also want an existing wall half torn down so that the kitchen opens up into the living room. We've been told by one contractor that there is no way the job can be done for less then $40k. By another that we can have all that in exactly the way we described for $25k. Another contractor says that if we take too much of the wall down and have to rewire electricity then our costs will skyrocket. Another says that the whole wall should be taken down to really open up the space. And a third says the wall is needed for load bearing support and if we take it down our dining room ceiling will begin to sag. Oye Vey. All these different opinions make me want to scream. Whom should we believe? The overly expensive contractor who seem to know what they are doing? The gung-ho and reasonably priced contractor who seems to embrace all of our ideas? Or the cautious contractor who seems to shy away from any of our ideas that bring great change to the layout?

Tomorrow is a final interview with a 4th kitchen contractor as well as the final shutter sales rep. I am hoping that either one of them agrees with something the other contractors have said. If not, I'm not sure we will know who to believe and trust with a several thousand dollar project. Wish us luck.

Our Kitchen Now

Wall on left side of picture to be taken down in kitchen remodel.

Design inspiration for our future kitchen.